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- Maxnaut sought to list his Bored Ape NFT for 75 ETH ($286,000).
- The investor mistakenly entered 0.75 ETH ($2,800), which is one hundredth the expected price.
In April this year, Bored Ape Yacht Club was launched with 10,000 NFT collections. It has since become one of the most prestigious collections in the world with some of its members including Jimmy Fallon, Post Malone, and Steph Curry. As it stands, the cheapest anyone can buy a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT is 52 ETH ($198,000). However, a user identified as Maxnaut made a devastating “fat finger error”, selling his Bored Ape NFT far less than the amount he wanted to sell.
Maxnaut sought to list his Bored Ape NFT for 75 ETH ($286,000). However, he mistakenly entered 0.75 ETH ($2,800), which is one hundredth the expected price. This was immediately bought by someone who as well paid a $34,000 gas fee to ensure no one buys it before him. The instantaneous buy of the NFT is suspected to have been done by a bot coded to immediately buy NFTs listed below a certain price. According to him, a little loss of concentration cost him this much.
I list a lot of items every day and just wasn’t paying attention properly. I instantly saw the error as my finger clicked the mouse but a bot sent a transaction with over 8 eths [$34,000] of gas fees so it instantly sniped before I could click cancel, and just like that, $250k was gone.
Interestingly, the original owner offered the buyer $50,000 to return it, but the buyer sold it for the then-market price of $150,000. Maxnaut believes that this happens in the market often.
The industry is so new, bad things are going to happen whether it’s your fault or the tech. Once you no longer have control of the outcome, forget and move on.
Fat finger errors common in crypto and NFT space
Fat finger errors are not new in the crypto space as many headlines have captured similar occurrences in the last few years. In 2019, the company behind Tether nearly doubled its coin supply after accidentally creating $5 billion worth of new coins.
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Recently, Someone trying to sell a CryptoPunk NFT for $19 million accidentally listed it for $19,000. In August, someone capitalized on a fat finger error after the owner listed a Bored Ape NFT for $26,000.
Last month, a company mistakenly paid a fee of $24 million on a $100,000 transaction. In March, BlockFi was supposed to send 700 Gemini dollars to several customers worth $1 each. However, they mistakenly sent millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins. Fat finger errors also occur in traditional finance. In 2014, a Japanese nearly bought 57 percent of the total Toyota’s stock by mistake.
Fat finger errors that happen in the traditional banking transaction can be easily reversed when the bank that facilitates the transaction is informed; however, reversal is almost impossible in the unregulated crypto market.
